Episode 1322: Read All About It
Date January 16, 2019 Summary Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ben and Travis Sawchik finishing their new book, The MVP Machine, Willians Astudillo’s MVP voting results, the Kyler Murray baseball/football decision and why it’s unusual for players in his situation to have leverage, Manny Machado rumors, and Yasmani Grandal’s comments about the contract he didn’t sign, then answer listener emails about why baseball players don’t hold out and Rickey Henderson’s base-stealing today, plus Stat Blasts about the biggest gaps between best and second-best years and the giant New York Yankees. Topics * Baseball holdouts * Rickey Henderson in modern time * Yankees are tall Intro * The Decemberists, "Midlist Author" Outro * Cake, "Open Book" Banter * Ben's book * Trevor Bauer * Scouts in baseball * Willians Astudillo 2nd in Winter League MVP * Willians Astudillo major league roster chances * Lost in baseball translation * Kyler Murray * Manny Machado market * Yasmani Grandal comments about his market * Grant Brisbee little league WAR * Being tall or short in baseball and baseball media Email Questions * Louis in Pittsburgh: this NFL season we saw a couple of successful and talented football players, Earl Thomas and La’Veon Bell refuse to play some games unless their team offered them a salary more commensurate to what they (probably correctly) saw as their free market value. I assume they believed that the act of playing football had a higher likelihood of decreasing their ability to realize their market value by causing them bodily harm and ware and tear then refusing to play. This situation has occurred many times in NFL history and seems to be part of the NFL player salary negotiation toolkit (https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2018/09/07/10-most-notable-nfl-holdouts/) and is reffered to as a ‘hold out’. My guess is that NFL players are incentivized to take high stakes negotiation strategies because the violence of NFL football means players have a high risk of career wrecking injury. This Means that NFL players are incentivized to realize their market value and lower their contract surplus value quicker than MLB players as their performance and market value is less sustainable than that of MLB players. In an era where some MLB players especially hard throwing relievers have high market values and high performance degradation risk like an NFL player, will we ever see a baseball player and particularly a pitcher ever make this argument and do an NFL style Hold out? In a world where a Wade Davis is paid 18 million for a steamer projected 3.83 FIP in 2019 and Edwin Diaz is projected to be paid 545 thousand for a steamer projected 2.36 FIP in 2019 does it make sense for Diaz to refuse to come to work in exchange for money until the Mets offer to pay him more money? Should he? Both Edwin Diaz and his employer know his surplus value greatly exceeds his current salary and he would retain much surplus value even if his salary was increased. So if he was to refuse to play until he was given more salary it would benefit both parties for him to have it. I think maybe Diaz should hold out, especially when I (highly unscientifically) consider his seemingly above the mean injury risk and especially when I consider he doesn't play for my team anymore. * Patrick: What would a prime Rickey Henderson look like in this modern era? Would he be able to steal more or less than he did? Obviously Rickey gets full autonomy in all baseball decisions involving Rickey. * Zach: Given the the growing wisdom that base stealing is often not worth the risk, would one have to assume that if Ricky Henderson played today he would not have nearly as many steals? Or were his skills at such a level that the normal risk calculation wouldn't apply, meaning he would have been given the same amount of opportunities * Chris: Two episodes ago you guys were discussing Astudillo and how much of a shame it would be if we wasn't given playing time. Twins fans have been talking about this all offseason, because A) everyone's in love with him -- if he was traded, there would be riots-- and B) there's a definite fear that he won't make the 25-man. There's a detailed breakdown on reddit covering the state of the roster and the conclusion drawn is that he'll miss by a spot or two to start the season, but likely get called up later on as injuries or changing needs affect his status. And like you said, the fact that he has options works against him, considering other players without an obvious role to fill, like Tyler Austin, do not. The only way he starts the season on the opening day roster is some combination of the Twins opening wtih a 4-man rotation and keeping 13 position players instead of 12. Both feel unlikely, but hey, new manager means anything could happen, right? StatBlast * Avisail Garcia has a difference of 3.8 WAR between his best and second best season, it is tied for 19th of all time. * First place goes to Darin Erstad, his best season was 8.7 in his best yet, his second best was 3.6 WAR, a difference of 5.1. * The Yankees can eclipse the tallest lineup of all time this season beating the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2005, when they did it twice. Notes * Willians Astudillo lost the MVP vote 178 to 176. * Two voters left Willians off of their ballot entirely. * Billy Hamilton has attempted a stolen base 40 percent of the chances he had, Rickey went about 43 percent of the time. * Terrance Gore has attempted a stolen base on 67 percent of his opportunities. * Hitters are about 5 inches taller than when baseball began. * Jeff and Ben banter about what it is like to not be tall to end the episode. * “I am not ripped out of my God, I am very much in my gord” - Jeff Links https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1322-read-all-about-it/ Link to preorder The MVP Machine Link to Astudillo results Link to Jeff’s Garcia post Link to hitter height data Link to Grant’s Little League WAR article Link to article about baseball terms in Spanish Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes